Integrating the Gridiron pptx

[...]... “gorilla” the next.44 Historian Jeffrey Sammons has also linked Ali’s career to the black power movement by probing the fighter’s relationship with Malcolm X and the NOI According to Sammons, the Muslim leader tried to influence the sport of boxing and manipulate the heavyweight division, knowing that black fighters wielded power in the media and were among the nation’s most visible symbols.45 Contrary to the. .. fail There is little benefit to thinking of the 1960s as the “era of Muhammad Ali” instead of the “King years.” Instead, sport history needs the kind of enrichment that scholars have brought to the study of other aspects of American culture Brian Ward’s examination of postwar music is an excellent example In Just My Soul Responding, Ward outlines the stark difference between the black music of the 1960s... black music of the 1960s and the “sweet, biracial pop” of the late 1950s Ward argues that neither one nor the other genre was a more “authentic” expression of popular black consciousness, even though whites were much more likely to embrace the likes of Sam Cooke while soul artists employed rhetoric emphasizing black separatism Rather than a question of authenticity, Ward sees the era of biracial music... from across the country, but conferences like the Big Seven and the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) were hotspots for disagreements over integration Since the Civil War era in “Bleeding Kansas,” the Midwest and Upper South had acted as battlegrounds in the partisan war to define race in America As the popularity of football progressed in the 1950s, these regions became more influential to the game; schools... fight, the Brown Bomber commanded as many headlines as hard news stories the Scottsboro boys, Ethiopia, or the Depression Joe Louis’s early career, particularly his embarrassing defeat by Max Schmeling in 1936, also introduced for the first time the centrality of the African American press in creating athletic celebrities who transcended sport Louis’s image in the press as the anti–Jack Johnson and the. .. For the many who listen to sports radio, read sports journalism, and follow their favorite teams, debates such as these make college sport a lens for examining complex issues like race, affirmative action, civil rights, and discrimination Indeed, for some (often younger) fans, college athletics may be the only medium through which they have thought extensively about 1 INTEGRATING THE GRIDIRON 2 these... and social concerns, and the extent to which his multiple profiles were thrust upon him by both critics and fans “No other sports figure was so enmeshed in the political events of his time,” writes Marqusee, INTEGRATING THE GRIDIRON 18 emphasizing the extent to which Ali himself was shaped by the 1960s: “[W]e cannot allow ourselves to be so seduced by its hero that we forget the confusing conditions... explore the largest conflicts over integration in the game These episodes specifically transcended the realm of sport and entertainment, generating nationwide attention and interregional dialogue in the pivotal years of the modern civil rights movement College athletes played a fundamental role in contesting and reshaping the broader social struggle of African Americans in the twentieth century, and their... Department 10 INTEGRATING THE GRIDIRON the South.21 Meanwhile, universities in the West began to shape intercollegiate contests; for example, the annual Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, established itself as the country’s preeminent game in the 1920s Black athletes faced obvious exclusion not only at schools that outright prohibited African American students from enrolling, including southern colleges,... Keith Miller have argued that Jackie Robinson’s success was based on jazz aesthetic—an “improvisational” style of play he learned while living in Kansas City and playing for the Monarchs.54 20 INTEGRATING THE GRIDIRON Scholars should continue to apply these same questions to the realm of sport Is there such a thing as a more “authentic” black athlete? Historians Randy Roberts, Geoffrey Ward, and Gail . alt="" Integrating the Gridiron